


The Red (Creeping and Crawling Inside)

by etheratisha



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Giving Up, I'm Sorry, Madness, Red Lyrium, red lyrium!cullen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-17
Updated: 2015-04-17
Packaged: 2018-03-23 07:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3760693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etheratisha/pseuds/etheratisha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red lyrium grows and grows and never stops. Cullen knows this if he knows nothing else. A short little ficlet in which the Inquisitor has failed, Corypheus has won, and Cullen's worst nightmare is crawling through his veins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Red (Creeping and Crawling Inside)

    He can feel it growing. Even now, after all this time, he can feel it growing. Its burn and tug so familiar now as it pulls on all that he is, _unravels his threads like he’s a fraying tapestry, maybe soon he’ll just be a pile of broken thread_ , and still it grows. It won’t ever stop growing, even when it’s finally consumed him, finally ended his macabre mockery of life. It’s relentless, _he’s the soil and it’s a weed, its roots all tangled in his soul, draining all that he is_ , and it’s inescapable. How long has he been here? It has been an eternity, _all that he is ebbing into it, feeding it, nurturing it, but oh how he hates it, hates it with all he has left ._ If the Maker does exist, _He is cruel, cruel like the demons that torture, and whisper, and lie_ . He has abandoned him. There is no hope, _hope shone a soft green from the palm of a hand, beautiful, still, gone_ . The herald is dead, _still so still, like the statues of Andraste, just as beautiful, just as unreachable_ . They’re all dead, _dead, and red, and torn asunder, it bursts from them, grows from them, becomes them_ . There’s nothing left, _nothing, nothing, nothing ._ There is no Maker, _cruel as the red crawling inside him, wriggling like worms_ , and there is no salvation, _soft green glowing, sharp green bursting, sharp is stronger, blots out the glow, consumes it_ . He was something better once, _tall, proud, lion, Commander, “Ser, what do we do, what do we do!?” ,_

    “Nothing.” He whispers. There’s no one or thing to hear him, but the red, _red, red, like iron in his bed and monsters in his head_ . What he is now, _empty inside, the redness is hollow, a darkness eating away_ , is broken, _shattered worse than the demons made him, because at least they had to ask to get inside, the red needs no permission, no prelude to invasion ._ There is darkness in the Maker’s light, _there is no light at all, the Chant is a lie, a sweet nothing to help those with hope sleep at night, those with life_ . He is a lie, _twisted, broken, not even a man anymore, a monster, a grotesque creature ._ He would welcome the Void, _sweet nothing, sweet sweet nothing, better than the red inside, tearing him up ._ Let him die, _please, please let him find oblivion, let him find death ._

    There are footsteps, _are there or does he hear the memories ,_ the breaking of the silence is strange, _it interrupts the red song, but he’s heard it so long now it’s lost to him anyways ._ A door creaks on its hinges, but what does that matter, why should he care? There is nothing but the red, _he can feel it growing._


End file.
